corbel
Americannoun
-
any bracket, especially one of brick or stone, usually of slight extent.
-
a short horizontal timber supporting a girder.
verb (used with object)
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corbels,
present (3rd person singular)
-
corbeled,
past participle, past
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corbelled,
past participle, past (especially British)
-
corbeling,
present participle
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corbelling
present participle (especially British)
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to set (bricks, stones, etc.) so as to form a corbel or corbels (usually followed byout ).
-
to support by means of a corbel or corbels.
noun
verb
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
corbelsimple
-
corbelssimple
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have corbeledperfect
-
have corbelledperfect
-
has corbeledperfect
-
has corbelledperfect
-
am corbelingprogressive
-
am corbellingprogressive
-
are corbelingprogressive
-
are corbellingprogressive
-
is corbelingprogressive
-
is corbellingprogressive
-
have been corbelingperfect progressive
-
have been corbellingperfect progressive
-
has been corbelingperfect progressive
-
has been corbellingperfect progressive
Past
-
corbeledsimple
-
corbelledsimple
-
had corbeledperfect
-
had corbelledperfect
-
was corbelingprogressive
-
was corbellingprogressive
-
were corbelingprogressive
-
were corbellingprogressive
-
had been corbelingperfect progressive
-
had been corbellingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of corbel
1375–1425; late Middle English < Middle French < Medieval Latin corvellus, equivalent to Latin corv ( us ) raven 1 + -ellus diminutive suffix
Vocabulary lists containing corbel
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Though it needed considerable love, he knew, largely thanks to an original marble fireplace with neo-Classical corbel detailing and an unusual wrought-iron spiral staircase, that it was where he wanted to be.
From New York Times ● Mar. 23, 2022
At 11 inches tall, the classic creature can serve as an indoor wall corbel or bookend.
From Seattle Times ● Nov. 16, 2021
“Aggressive excavation of concrete at the severely deteriorated pool corbel could affect the stability of the remaining adjacent concrete construction,” Morabito and his colleagues wrote.
From Washington Post ● Jul. 2, 2021
In the largest houses, the stairwells are joiner’s poems of raking architrave, barley twist, corbel and column-newel.
From New York Times ● Oct. 15, 2014
Norman work has frequently some very grotesque heads in corbel tables and tower corners, to the odd appearance of which the decay by weather has no doubt much contributed.
From The Grotesque in Church Art by T. Tindall Wildridge
The door of 10 Downing Street was copied from the original and is enclosed within a composite fibreglass painted architrave "flanked by scrolled acanthus leaf corbels" and surrounded by black-painted iron railings.
From BBC ● Nov. 20, 2023
Longstaffe-Gowan also installed sculptures from Morgan’s collection, including a Roman sarcophagus, a Roman funerary stele and two Renaissance corbels, in the garden.
From New York Times ● Jun. 10, 2022
Engravings can be admired on corbels and finials across the UK, remnants of a time when keeping up with the neighbours meant throwing lavish parties and displaying one's riches.
From BBC ● Aug. 1, 2020
Features: The 1908 semidetached Victorian rowhouse on Capitol Hill has high ceilings, decorative crown molding, ornate fireplace mantels, elegant corbels and stylish wainscoting.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 18, 2017
He studied one by one the grotesque carvings of dwarfs that decorated the roof bosses, and the corbels finishing the doorway.
From "The Door in the Wall" by Marguerite de Angeli
The large, open fireplace is built of clinker brick, and its facings extend from the floor to the ceiling; it has a wooden shelf supported on corbeled brackets.
From Three Acres and Liberty by Bolton Hall
Above these windows, the tower, hitherto square, becomes gradually octagonal, springing from corbeled heads; till terminated by four octagonal pinnacles, and crowned by an octagonal moulded battlement.
From The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction Volume 20, No. 558, July 21, 1832 by Various
We descended alone into the pharaoh’s burial chamber, where the twins’ voices echoed off the high corbelled ceiling.
From The Guardian ● Apr. 26, 2019
I arrived in a large tomb chamber with a soaring corbelled ceiling.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 2, 2015
The space is first narrowed by two corbelled courses of stone and, above them, by three projecting courses of brick.
From Byzantine Churches in Constantinople Their History and Architecture by Alexander Van Millingen
It is far better preserved than the rest, but the two niches have lost their statues, and a corbelled tower was destroyed in 1827, when shops were first put in.
From The Story of Rouen by Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
The cornice and chimney tops are corbelled, and there are iron cresting and finials on the ridge of the hipped roof.
From The Fairfax County Courthouse by Ross De Witt Netherton
Rain or shine, hot or cold, you will find them corbeling around like Trojans.
From Love Conquers All by Gluyas Williams
The second year included rowlock and bonded segmental arches; blocking, toothing, and corbeling; building and bonding of vaulted walls; polygonal and circular walls, piers and chimneys; fire-places and flues.
From One Way Out A Middle-class New-Englander Emigrates to America by William Carleton
Or when they are not corbeling they may be toothing.
From Love Conquers All by Gluyas Williams
The walls in one case stood high enough to show, from the corbelling of their upper courses, that the huts were roofed in the same fashion as the nuraghi themselves.
From Rough Stone Monuments and Their Builders by T. Eric (Thomas Eric) Peet
It has no corbelling and no arched and cusped work; it is merely a plain piece of walling, slightly overhung with a weathered coping at the top and a moulded string beneath.
From Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Chichester (1901) A Short History & Description Of Its Fabric With An Account Of The Diocese And See by Hubert C. (Hubert Christian) Corlette
A doorway just large enough to be entered with comfort leads through the thickness of the wall into a round chamber roofed by corbelling, with the assistance sometimes of one or more pillars.
From Rough Stone Monuments and Their Builders by T. Eric (Thomas Eric) Peet
The roof is made either by laying large slabs across the tops of the sides or by corbelling with smaller slabs as at Stoney Littleton.
From Rough Stone Monuments and Their Builders by T. Eric (Thomas Eric) Peet
Two courses of corbelling also appeared on the two chimneys located at the back and in the center section of the building.
From The Fairfax County Courthouse by Ross De Witt Netherton
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
